Donald Trump’s NFT Prices Soar As Indictment Looms

Prices for Donald Trump‘s digital “trading cards” are soaring following calls from the former president to supporters to take to the streets in protest ahead of his likely indictment in New York City this week.

The former president—who is currently facing a Manhattan district attorney probe into whether he illegally paid off two former sexual partners for their silence during the 2016 presidential election—launched the trading cards in the form of “non-fungible tokens” in December. NFTs include any digital art with a unique signature on a blockchain or database. The launch drew criticism and disappointment from a number of his supporters who felt he wasn’t taking his burgeoning 2024 campaign seriously enough.

However, all 45,000 of the $99-a-piece trading cards that were released—depicting Trump’s face photoshopped into a series of hypermasculine and patriotic scenes—quickly sold out upon their launch, with prices fluctuating up and down at rapid pitch.

In addition to their intrinsic value, the cards were also sold with the possibility of buyers receiving benefits like dinner or even an in-person meet-and-greet with Trump. As of this week, Trump’s vendor on the NFT marketplace OpenSea, Trump Deployer, was selling tickets on the platform for buyers to join a group Zoom call with the former president, with prices ranging between $25 and $88.

The trading cards, however, were among Trump’s most lucrative products on the digital platform.

On December 17, two days after launching the NFT series, the floor price for the trading cards on OpenSea peaked at 0.82 Ethereum, the equivalent of about $999. The following week, the floor price stood at 0.23 ETH, or around $280, before falling to a price of approximately 0.212 ETH in early January.

Since then, the price of Trump’s NFT trading cards has ranged as high as 0.68 ETH—a little over $1,776 dollars—to as low as 0.42 ETH (or $722) earlier this month. Since news of Trump’s imminent arrest last week, however, the floor price of Trump’s NFTs has spiked more than 32 percent, with OpenSea data showing the total number of sales increasing by double-digit percentages.

Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s NFT company for comment.

The price spikes in the NFTs come as Trump has urged civil disobedience and protests ahead of his potential indictment, which media reports state will likely come as soon as Tuesday. There has been no official word from the district attorney’s office on charging or arresting Trump.

Over the weekend, Trump railed against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, stating he instead should be arrested for the crime of “interference in a presidential election.” In a message to supporters over the weekend, Trump sought to fundraise for his campaign over his eventual arrest with a video message on his donation page where he pledged to “never surrender.”

“The radical left Democrats think they can bury me and never ending witch hunts and vicious attacks,” said Trump. “They’ve been after us for years and we haven’t yielded even an inch and we want every single time. But let me be as clear as possible. I will never surrender, and you will never surrender.”